


blood in the water

by kabukicho



Series: hold your breath near graveyards [1]
Category: Gintama
Genre: Character Study, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, warning for gore (it's the flashback to shouyou's death)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:34:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26245741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kabukicho/pseuds/kabukicho
Summary: More blood on his yukata that wasn’t his. And more blood that was.
Series: hold your breath near graveyards [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1910479
Kudos: 27





	blood in the water

To his horror, his blade only makes it halfway through. His throat closes as tightly as it always does, right before; right when blood comes pouring from Shouyou’s neck. He breathes out as slowly as ever. His lungs are hesitating to expand. Hands so steady, it almost feels as though this position were something meant to be ingrained at the back of his mind. As if he, too, were to face a fatal swoop, and this was his final form. Almost as if death had been granted to the wrong party.

A sudden bout of hesitation makes Gintoki’s movements stutter. His sword trembles, dripping fresh, burning blood into the dirt beneath him. He doesn’t pay attention to the way it clots unnaturally, how feverish it behaves; grappling at the dirt, soaking quickly deep into the ground. There are distant screams that rip him back to reality, and he’s staring at his master’s head, lopsided and grossly hanging from an obscene angle he finds quite familiar to see again.

_Is he dead?_

His hand twitches. The tip of his sword meets the ground.

_Did I kill him?_

_Must I strike him again?_

Those questions were something he was to repeat over and over again the days after. By now, he was sure of it. It was a tedious and cruel process. From the blood splatter to the twitching of his hands to the flesh that began to branch in all directions from that rotten corpse, he’d memorized all of it, and all of it unwillingly. 

Gintoki could tell what was next: his hands would grip that sword harder than he’d ever done in his life. Then, his vision would blur; tears were always out of his control once they’d find the surface of his eyes. He’d have no capability of thinking straight once he struck his master again, the final blow causing Shouyou’s head to hit the ground. And each time, Gintoki flinched at the impact, standing his ground once his sword felt cool air surrounding it and it’s spectators. So blurry the world became, tears falling unfettered into that puddle of blood trailing from Shouyou’s kneeling, lifeless body. 

Still and slowly he shook, cowardly and cold, afraid of turning back to face who’d screamed out his name moments before he’d failed to cut down his master honorably for the nth time.

Hundredth? Maybe even a thousand? 

* * *

When the sun rose most days, he woke from that nightmarish dream, climbing hesitantly and slowly out from his futon so as to not irritate his stomach even more. He knew his limits; nothing new today, and nothing new tomorrow. The same brash routine. How much could his health take from what he called therapy? At the expense of his liver (and the remaining funds he’d made around that town whose graveyard felt like home again), his feet stuttered pathetically to the bathroom a room away, dragging dust and dirt with them. 

He shook violently once he could make himself out in the mirror. Of course, his vision was another factor that made it hard to see exactly how shitfaced he looked. Probably the same way he’d look the morning before, and those mornings before that one. Another attempt to look at himself only takes a second before the motion sickness takes a toll on him, and he’s struggling to keep his balance. This always made it hard to lift the toilet seat as best he could, before letting whatever leftovers the old lady downstairs could salvage for him out onto the toilet water beneath him. 

He’d met the old lady the same day all of Shouyou’s blood had dried on his hands. He remembered it quite clearly, actually, since he’d failed to keep that promise they’d made. How ironic, no, _how pathetic it was_ , to crawl back to Otose, bleeding, _staggering_ , struggling to breathe, when he’d made that promise to her with his back turned so confidently, eating her food...

More blood on his yukata that wasn’t his. And more blood that was. More blood that stained her husband’s grave, while he held that woman in his arms, unsaved, just like the rest of whom he’d loved.

_Should’ve only been my blood from the start_.

The rain felt so close now, and he was reliving it again, _all of it_ again, ears ringing with those words Jirocho had said to him in that graveyard once more, and Gintoki didn’t even realize he’d left the water running until Shinpachi had called out his name. 


End file.
